Jasmund, in her mid-twenties, was outgoing and lively, with shining brown eyes, dark hair, high cheekbones, and a slim figure that Ruby envied, having recently put on a few-pounds herself. You'll have to lay off the junk food soon, honey, she told herself for the umpteenth time.
"We have a meeting set up," Jasmund told her. "With Sergeant Clemson, Detective Yanis, and me.''
* * *
"The reason that Japanese family keeps calling us year after year," Detective Sandy Yanis of Homicide told Ruby, "is that they care so much about their ancestors. It's why they had the bodies flown back for burial, but apparently they won't rest well until whoever killed them is found and punished."
"They can rest soon," Ruby said. "It's ninety-eight percent certain that the man who did the killing was Elroy Doil, executed three weeks ago at Raiford for another crime.''
"I'll be damned. I remember reading about that."
Yanis, clearly an old hand, with a lanky, rugged physique, appeared to be in his late fifties. His face was seamed, the lines intersected by a long scar on his cheek that looked like an old knife wound. What remained of his graying hair was brushed back untidily. Half-moon glasses perched on the end of his nose; mostly he looked over them with a penetrating gaze.
The four were crowded into Sergeant Clemson's tiny office. In Miami's Metro-Dade headquarters, which she'd visited yesterday, broom closets would be larger, Ruby thought. Shirley Jasmund had already explained that the Tampa police headquarters, built in the early sixties, was inadequate and outmoded. "The politicians keep promising a new one but can never seem to find the money, so we struggle on."
Yanis quizzed Ruby. "You said you were ninety-eight percent certain about your guy Doil. How about the other two percent?"
"There's supposedly a knife hidden in a graveyard here in Tampa. If we find it, that ninety-eight becomes a hundred."
"Let's not play games," Sergeant Clemson said. "Be specific." He was younger then Sandy Yanis; though senior in rank, he seemed to defer to the older detective.
"All right." Once more Ruby described Elroy Doil's pre-execution confession to fourteen murders, including the Ikeis in Tampa a case that no one in Miami Homicide had heard of then Doil's emphatic denial of the Ernst double murder attributed to him, though he had not been formally charged.
"He was a pathological liar, and at first no one believed him," Ruby continued. "But now there are some doubts, and I have the job of checking everything he said."
Jasmund asked, "Have you caught him out in anything?"
"So far, not one thing."
"So, if whatever he said about Tampa checks out," Yanis prompted, "you might have another unsolved murder on your hands."
Ruby nodded. "A copycat."
"So what about the knife and a graveyard?" Clemson put in.
Reading from a notebook, Ruby quoted Doil's own words. " 'There's a cem'tery near where the Ikeis lived. Had ta get rid o' the knife I used, hid it in a grave. Know what was on the marker? Same last name as mine. Saw it, knew I'd remember if I wanted the fuckin' knife back, but I never got it.'
"Question: 'You buried the knife in a grave? Was it deep?'
"Answer: 'No, not deep.' "
Clemson opened a file on his desk. "The address where the Ikeis lived is 2710 North Mantanzas. Is there a cemetery near there?"
"Sure is," Yanis said. "Mantanzas runs into St. John, and there's a graveyard right behind called Marti Cemetery. It's small, old, and owned by the city."
"In case you hadn't realized it," Clemson told Ruby, "Sandy is our resident oracle. He's been around forever, forgets nothing, and knows every arcane corner of Tampa. Which is why he does pretty much what he likes and we put up with his peculiar ways."
"About memory," Yanis said, "I do have trouble remembering birthdays. Haven't a clue how many I've had."
"The bean counters know," Clemson rejoined. "When it's time they'll be around here with your pension check."
Ruby felt she was hearing an exchange that had taken place many times before.
More seriously, Yanis told her, "Most of the guys who work in Homicide get promoted out or move on to something else after six or seven years. The stress is too great. Me, I'm hooked on it all. I'll be here till they carry me out, and I remember old cases like the Ikeis, and love to see 'em closed. So let's get on start digging in that cemetery. Won't be the first time I've done that."
* * *
Sergeant Clemson used a speakerphone to call an assistant state attorney so the others could hear their conversation. After having the problem described to him, the attorney was uncompromising.
"Yes, Sergeant, I do realize we're not talking exhumation. But the reality is, no matter how near the surface the knife might be, you can't go disturbing any human grave without a judge's order."
"Any objection to us checking first, to find if there is such a grave?"
"I guess not, as part of an official investigation. But be careful. People are touchy about graves; it's like invading someone's privacy, or worse."
Afterward Clemson told Yanis, "Sandy, find out if there's a grave in that cemetery for someone named Doil. If there is, you can swear an affidavit, then ask a judge to sign an order letting us dig there." He added for Ruby, "This is going to take a couple of days, maybe more, but we'll move as fast as we can."
* * *
Ruby accompanied Yanis to City Hall and the Real Estate Division to meet an assistant property manager, Ralph Medina, whose responsibilities included Marti Cemetery. Medina, a small, middle-aged civil servant with a friendly attitude, explained, "Mart) doesn't need much managing, takes maybe four, five percent of my working time. One good thing once our tenants are inside, they never complain." He smiled at his own joke. "But if I can help, I will."
It was Ruby who described the purpose of their visit, Elroy Doil's pre-execution statement, and what they were seeking. She then inquired how many people were buried in the cemetery who had had that same last name.
"How do you spell that?"
"D-o-i-l."
Medina produced a file, ran a finger down several lists, then shook his head. "There's no such name. No one with that name's ever been buried at Marti."
"What about similar names?" Yanis asked.
"There are some spelled D-o-y-l-e."
"How many of those?"
Medina checked his lists again. "Three."
Yanis turned to Ruby. "What do you think?"
"I'm not sure. Doil's words were 'same last name as mine,' and the idea of disturbing three graves without real reason . . ." She shook her head.
"Yeah, know what you mean. Mr. Medina, when were the people in those Doyle graves buried?"
The answers took several minutes to find. At length: "One was in 1903, another in 1971, the last in 1986."
"Forget the third; that's six years after the Ikei murders. About the other two are you still in touch with the families?"
Again, more searching through registers, files, and yellowed pages, then the pronouncement, "The answer's no. The 1903 burial shows no contact at all; it was so long ago. After the 1971, there was an exchange of letters, then nothing."
"So you couldn't contact relatives of those dead people, even if you wanted?" Yanis queried.
"No, probably not."
"And if we obtained a judge's order to search those two graves just a foot or so below the surface, you'd cooperate?"